


Lamictal Orange Clouds and Lithium Flowers

by Daiya_Darko



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Gen, References to Suicide, psychotic episode, self-injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:50:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daiya_Darko/pseuds/Daiya_Darko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days are better than others, which is to say that some days Bruce doesn’t actually want to murder someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lamictal Orange Clouds and Lithium Flowers

Some days are better than others, which is to say that some days Bruce doesn’t actually want to murder someone.

Some days it’s hard to tell if the mania is what’s causing him to smile or if he’s actually happy.

Is he happy? He’s not sure, to be quite honest. He finally has a safe place; he’s not running for his life and scrabbling to survive. He has people who are willing to work beside him, trust their lives in his hands on the battlefield and off.

And yet.

He ran out of medication somewhere in Nepal, and he had an…incident. It was bad, but it was mostly a rural area anyways. The other guy took out a mountain and an avalanche crushed a village to death. After that, Bruce withdrew into himself, sulking as he continued along.

The mania is always the worst, because as soon as it gets you high, it drops you with no parachute.

Bruce would rather be manic for a month straight than depressed for a second. The lows are the worst, luring him into a false sense of security. The quiet nagging in the back of his head croons the sickest lullabies when he’s trying to sleep.

_Just stay in bed a little while longer. No one needs you. You’re not doing anything important anyways._

As much as he tries to fight it, Bruce can’t. He simply can’t resist the urge to pull his makeshift covers over his head and sleep a little longer.

When Bruce put that barrel in his mouth, he had hit the lowest he possibly could. His only regret is that it didn’t work.

And of course, like bipolar disorder is wont to do, it morbidly gave him a burst of energy.

Bruce rode his manic high, coaching himself to stay as positive as possible. He took the altruistic approach: helping others, and it worked for some time. There were moments where he felt the depression slink into his brain, but he shook them away. He had a purpose, now and nothing, not even past haunts, could hold him back.

And then SHIELD had to come, and all his practiced, hard-working façade collapsed in an instant.

It was fun playing with people who knew about him. The manic side was angry, angry at them and everyone else again. The depressed side remembered everything before.

Together, they were a vaguely controlled chaotic mess.

Bruce felt a swell of pride when he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun again. He liked knowing he could elicit such a reaction so easily. He could smell the fear on Natasha, see it in the way she moved. Oh she was trained, but she was nothing for Bruce.

None of them were. Not even Tony, for all his deeply-rooted issues and personality flaws. No, Tony had not only acknowledged the elephant in the room, but he had prodded it, jested it, he even fed it. Bruce ate up the attention, feeling his manic side calm down in Tony’s presence. Of course, calming down meant depression, and that wasn’t good.

Bruce needed the edge, needed the fight. He craved the tension in the room, fed off the mounting negative energy. It swam through his veins, and a cautious voice in the back of his head warned him as his voice rose.

Suddenly the room was quiet, and Bruce snapped back to focus, realizing the staff was in his hand.

The mania he had ridden, all the anger and joy, suddenly dropped him thirty thousand feet below.

He deflated, bitter, but that was only the start. He thought the depression would just take him, wrap him in the comfortingly sick blanket of solitude and despair, but he was still tense.

Bruce loathed this in between feeling, this mixed affective state.

Bruce also loathed the Hulk, but he wasn’t sure which one he hated more: the emotional state or the thing that it brought out.

After the Hulk caught Tony, Bruce knew his answer.

Now that he has a home – if he can call it that – Bruce can start his medication again. He can start back up on the pills, on the chalky cocktail that he bitterly swallowed twice a day.

But he doesn’t want to. He made it this far without the help of meds, that he honestly doesn’t need them anymore. Bruce looks at himself in the mirror, tries to smile, and push his hair back. His hair falls in his face, and his cheeks hurt. He glances over to where his bed waits, and the quiet nagging returns.

_There’s nothing for you here. You’re just a waste of space. You take up time and resources. You did your part, and now you’re useless. People don’t want you around._

_Kill yourself._

“No!” Bruce screams at the voice, and he feels silly as he begins crying, because it’s his voice. It’s always his voice in the back of his head telling him how useless he is.

Only, he isn’t. Bruce knows he’s not, and yet here he is, sobbing and punching the mirror to pieces in the bathroom. The conflict angers him, and he can feel the rush of emotion overwhelm him, bursting forth like levees in a storm.

This time, however, he doesn’t transform. Bruce grabs at the shards of glass, still yelling and crying, and cuts at his arms and chests. He doesn’t care about possible contamination; he’s psychotic, and he doesn’t even know where he is.

All he knows is that he is a mistake, he should not exist, and everything about him defies logic.

Things that defy logic make Bruce Banner angry.

Bruce wakes up strapped to a medical table, and for a brief instant, he fears he’s been captured for experimentation. However, he stops struggling when he sees Tony’s pale, concerned face through the reinforced glass walls. Lying back, relaxing his muscles, Bruce tries to recall what happened. He was getting ready for the day, and then nothing. He turns his head and smiles at Tony, nodding for him to come inside, but Tony shakes his head, pointing to the radiation warning.

“Tony, get in a hazmat suit and come talk to me,” Bruce pleas.

“Bruce, you really scared me today,” Tony begins shakily. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were out of medication?”

Bruce’s smiles falls. “SHIELD knew?”

Tony snorts and rolls his eyes. “SHIELD knows all. You know that.” Tony finally grabs a hazmat suit from the wall and quickly gets dressed. He signals a thumbs-up to the attendant in the observation booth, and he activates the air locks, allowing Tony through.

Bruce flexes his hands and winces. Looking around as much as possible, he can see bandages covering up his arms, chest, legs, and thighs. He sighs and tries to force a smile.

“Well, you’ve seen me at my worst. It can only go up from here,” Bruce jokes, but he falls quiet when he sees the frustrated glare on Tony’s face through the mask.

“Bruce, you and I haven’t had much time to really get to know each other. We’ve both been busy and that’s understandable, but please don’t feel like you can’t come to me – “

“It’s not that I can’t, but I won’t!” Bruce snaps. “I won’t come to you because I took care of myself just fine without medication! I can handle myself!”

“Bruce, you’re manic right now,” Tony says quietly, gently resting his gloved hand over Bruce’s.

“I’m not manic, dammit! I’m – “ Bruce breaks down into sobs and lets the guilt rush over him. He’s too numb, too tired to fight it anymore. The depression wants him, and it’ll have him.

“Bruce,” Tony soothes, stroking his hair. “It’ll be alright. I’m going to help you if you’ll let me, okay?”

Nodding, Bruce agrees, but he doesn’t stop crying until he falls asleep, feeling rested for the first time in years. He dreams of an open, green pasture full of yellow flowers and light orange clouds in the sky as the sun sets. 

**Author's Note:**

> I saw someone on tumblr write a drabble involving bipolar disorder/self-injury. Idk if that person actually has or is close to someone with bipolar disorder, but they failed miserably to even capture the essence of these issues, especially considering the characters involved (Bruce and Tony, but I chose to focus on Bruce). As someone who has taken both Lamictal (past) and Lithium (current) and struggled for years with SI, I decided to do everyone a smooth favor and write this.
> 
> Shout out to everyone with manic depression~


End file.
